A Doctor Without a TARDIS
by The Mudblooded Slytherin
Summary: What happens to Rose and the substitute Doctor after Journey's End. While it would be nice to believe they were in love and got married and lived happily ever after, you know that's not how it happened. It couldn't.


It isn't in her when she smiles at me. I remember her smile; huge and happy and warm. Took over her whole face, not just those pretty lips. It scrunched her eyes and dimpled her checks and tilted her head to the side. That smile could make me hot on a cold day on Fferruhynnu. Well, it could. That isn't to say it ever did, because her smile isn't like that anymore.

It's ludicrous to feel jealous of yourself, isn't it? Not that I feel much like the Doctor these days. I tried to be patient. Let her get used to the idea that, for all intents and purposes, I am the same man that she loved. It's only natural for someone to pull back when they are confused, so I tried to play it slow. But I can't bear it any longer. Because she doesn't love me. It kills me but it's true. She loves him, always has and always will. If I'm honest with myself, I think I always knew. Ever since that day on Bad Wolf Bay. Yes, she kissed me. She kissed me passionately. But there was more anger and disappointment in that kiss than anything else. And then that bastard I spawned from slipped off while she was distracted, the coward. The look on her face was too painful to bear. She didn't say one word to me the entire way home, from Norway to London. Not that I didn't try. Talk about awkward.

"Rose," I said, then faltered. I didn't know what words to use. What does a newly spawned metacrisis of a lost love do when said love vanishes once again, leaving a substitute in his place? Should I forget the words and just kiss her? I had all these memories but I still felt like a newborn. It's one thing to remember how I used to hold her, how HE did, and another entirely to do it now. I tried to put my hand on hers. She wasn't looking at me, but at that moment she reached up to wipe a tear. Coincidence? Was it a sign? Or did she see me out of the corner of her eye? I put my hand back on my knee.

I tried a few more times to talk to her, but I just couldn't. Sometimes you just need time by yourself to get your mind straight. But then, sometimes you want someone to hold you and tell you everything will be alright. I was a coward born of a coward, what could I do?

Jackie glared at me. Motioned me to do something. I looked at her pleadingly. Help me, I thought. I don't know how. She rolled her eyes and told Pete to pull over. She kicked me up to the front seat and took my place beside Rose. She held her, cried with her, told her everything would be alright. At least someone did.

I tried so hard to acclimatize those first few months, but what is the Doctor without his TARDIS? I had no idea what I was to do with my time. Jackie told me I should get a job in a shop. I laughed for days on that one until I realized she was right. Not about the shop bit, but about the job. It killed my soul a little to admit it to her. I was stuck on parallel Earth (I suppose I should stop thinking of it that way, but it is still parallel to me, even today) with no ship and no prospects of getting one. It's not like they just hand them out, and 21st century Earth isn't the place to go if you want any good tech anyway.

Rose wasn't speaking to me much. I don't know what I expected but it wasn't kipping on the couch. I joked to her once; reminding her of the day she suggested we "share" a mortgage. She gave me a thin smile. Said it was an idea then disappeared into her bedroom for an hour. Not the best of responses.

After a week or so Rose got me a spot at their parallel U.N.I.T. I hadn't really considered it; that kind of outfit had tended to be a thorn in my side more often than not, but they wanted me badly and it beat a shop. Consulting, they said. Which I supposed meant that when things got bad they would ask for my opinion and then disregard it completely. Rose said I was being cynical and I was highly respected by the upper management. I said respect doesn't mean a damn thing when they have a Perceived Threat looming over them.

There weren't any threats, though. Mostly I was called in to identify broken artifacts. It was mind-numbingly boring. I made it my mission to try and get Rose and me on a ship going anywhere. I thought if maybe I could get us out into new and exciting places it would be just like old times, or at least close enough. Not that anything these apes (us apes, I suppose - how depressing is that?) were up to was terribly exciting after All of Time and Space. They weren't biting anyway. Thought I would run, I suppose, though I don't know how I could have. I have a reputation for doing the impossible, though, and I guess I wasn't surprised. After all that happened (or, rather, didn't happen) with Rose I wasn't expecting anything to be easy.

We got on a ship. I don't know how, Rose did it. They like her there. Of course they would, she's Rose. It was just a routine stint on a spaceship that orbited parallel Mars, but I was ecstatic. 155 days to get closer to her! And finally a chance to get off this bloody planet and away from bills and telly and Jackie and the baby and Jackie's cooking and, well, everything. A new world! Only able to look at it through six foot glass but it was something. And Rose would be there! It may sound a bit creepy but at least on the space station there wasn't anywhere she could disappear to. It was hard to foster a relationship when she would swan off for days, doing "Torchwood-y things," or so she said. I was actually a bit surprised when she told me about it. She was coming around. Adjusting. Learning to love me again!

Life on the space station was pretty much exactly as I hoped. Sure, it was boring most of the time, but I had gotten used to boredom. It was Rose. She was so much happier here. We talked and laughed just like old times. Actually, we talked and laughed mostly about old times, but there isn't much else to talk about on a space station. I was happy. Rose looked happy. I was so very happy that she was happy. We started sharing a room, and soon after, a bed. I was in heaven waking up next to that beauty every day. She cried sometimes, said she was homesick, but I would hold her and tell her that everything would be okay, and it seemed like everything would be okay. Even though there was no TARDIS and the scenery was usually incredibly dull and I had to make multitudes of annotations in a chart every day, I knew that this was the way the Doctor and Rose were meant to be. Happy. Not that we were perfect, no one is perfect. She still got a bit depressed sometimes about the whole real Doctor/new Doctor thing, but not often and I understood how she would be confused. I didn't really feel like the Doctor anymore.

Things continued on in that quietly happy way without incident. Until day 148. Our time on the station was almost over. I said, "Rose Tyler, will you marry me?" I didn't have a ring, but it was a beautiful sunrise: the plains of parallel Mars looked pink like rose petals and I was down on one knee.

She said, "Marry?" She seemed incredibly confused.

I said, "Yes. Marry."

"What d'you mean, marry?"

"Ah, marry. You know, with a wedding and a house and maybe children someday. We may have to adopt, though, I'm just saying that right out." I adopted a winning smile.

She said nothing. She looked like she was going to cry, and not in the happy way. "Isn't that a bit.. domestic for you?"

My knee was starting to hurt. "If you hadn't noticed, I'm rather domesticated now. I'm human, no TARDIS. I don't have all that much choice. But that's not what's important." I took a deep breath. It was pretty obvious what her answer would be, but I had to finish. I had to try. "I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, grow old with you. Do you want to spend the rest of your life with me?"

She did start to cry. I got up off my knee and sat next to her on the sofa. I put my arm around her and rubbed her shoulder while she cried into mine. "I wanted to spend the rest of my life with the Doctor," she whispered.

I thought about protesting. I am the Doctor! I wanted to say. Don't you understand? I came from him, it's just as though he came to this world himself! But I didn't, it would have been a lie. Instead I said, "I know."

It's not her fault. She can't help who she loves. The bastard I spawned from probably told himself he was doing us both such a huge favor and he was sacrificing so much. I know it; we did used to be the same person after all. I would have told myself the same thing back then. But in the back of my mind I know it's because he was afraid to lose her again. Bad things happen to the Doctor's companions. He couldn't chance that, so he pushed her away, and pushed me on her as a consolation prize to sooth his conscience. And, as always with the Doctor, someone else is left to pick up the pieces. Only this time, he's broken her heart so much the shards are only dust, and I will never forgive myself.


End file.
